StepOne and Jóvenes con Futuro at the Crunchies!
The fifth annual Crunchies Awards, which recognize the most important technological innovations in the past year, has become one of the most important tech events in the world. In this edition, all the entrepreneur world would look to meet at the impressive Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco to enjoy the gala, hosted by Harris Wittels.
Wittels, known for his Twitter handle @Humblebrag, made a hilarious introduction showing – in the enormous stage screen – tweets of famous tech stars complaining about how exhausting and hard being a tech personality was. Later in his speech, he performed a conversation with Siri, Apple’s voice recognition device, asking her “What’s the difference between Siri and Larry Page?” and Siri’s answer made all the audience burst into laughter “Siri has a personality.”
After that, San Francisco’s Mayor, Ed Lee, took the word in order to encourage all present to fight against SOPA and to promote his tech jobs initiative for the City. Angel investor Ron Conway submitted Lee’s words and remembered the importance of “good guys can win” concept, which for him represents the Silicon Valley environment.
The show started controversially when Google+ was announced as the winner for best social application of 2011, defeating Facebook’s Timeline, the New New Twitter, Path and Instagram. Those who were there expressed mixed feelings about Google+ winning, but Google’s social chief Vic Gundotra posted his happiness on his G+ profile.
Further than that, the rest of the awards went more or less as expected, DropBox the absolute winner of the night as Best Overall Startup of 2011 (the company bought a lot of tickets for their employees and they yelled – a lot, every time Dropbox was announced as a nominee or as the winners). Special mention should also be made of the award recognizing Pinterest as Best New Startup, Peixe Urbano within the Best International Startup category (“Groupon for Brazil”) and Nest as the Best New Device, taking over iPad as the winner of the previous edition and beating important rivals as Galaxy Nexus, iPad 2, iPhone 4S and the Kindle Fire.
Twitter and Square’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, got on stage twice last night, once to receive the Biggest Social Impact award (Twitter) and again being recognized as Founder of the year. Reid Hoffman won on the Angel of the Year category and the VC of the Year went to Marc Andreessen & Ben Horowitz.
The ceremony had a distinct international flavor with attendances from all over the globe. The Spanish start-up Bitcarrier (represented by Cristina Galan and Martin Mendez) was mentioned during the ceremony as part of the IBM SmartCamp contest they’re attending here in San Francisco. On the Spanish side, StepOne was there along with Miguel Angel Diez Ferreira (Red Karaoke), Eneko Knorr (Ideateca), Fernando Gracia (BBVA) and Jose Luis Agell (ChartBoost) among others. Our participants in Jovenes con Futuro Ignacio Soto and Pol Miro were there too. Here are their impressions on the Crunchies Awards:
“The night was full of glamour, and surrounded by a really geeky sense of humor. We could see how companies like Google no longer have such a good reputation as they used to, and others like Path or DropBox, who had their entire team seating right behind us, were really supported by the whole audience every time they were named. After all the awards were given we had a chance to meet everybody and have a drink, and I was even able to play poker (see pic below) against other programmers! In summary sharing one night around a lot of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs was a nice and inspiring experience.” – Ignacio Soto.
“Being able to have the exposure to some of the top talent in the tech industry has provided me with a renewed motivation and ambition to achieve my own goals. The ceremony was super entertaining, and the talks of the awarded winners diverse, inspiring and very interesting. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed that Github did not win the award for the best bootstrapped start-up. I really think they deserved it! As an overall of the event, I have to say that it made me realize why San Francisco is the top tech city in the world. All the people in the event, including the mayor, who made a nice talk, are all orientated in the same direction and I am happy to be a part of this community.” – Pol Miro.
Following the ceremony, winners and guests ran into the after party. TechCrunch arranged for a casino game zone, different theme photo-calls, hors d’oeuvres and a full bar opened till the end of the party!.
Who knows what 2012 will bring to Silicon Valley, but from StepOne we expect a Spanish start-up wins a Crunchie because “The best victories are the ones you have to fight for the hardest.” (Eric Eldon, TechCrunch writer).
Tweet“Prototyping is the conversation that you have with your ideas”
Alexander Osterwalder, author of the best selling book Business Model Generation held a talk this month at Stanford University’s Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders. In this presentation, “Cracking the Code of Entrepreneurship”, he gave a basic introduction to the philosophy behind his popular business model canvas and how he developed it. Osterwalder, who travels around the world speaking about the topic, found that everyone has a different definition of what “business model” really means. Words are not enough.
Osterwalder believes that “prototyping is the conversation that you have with your ideas”. To do so, it is important to utilize a visual model to sketch out and gain a big picture understanding. The business model canvas gives us a shared visual language to talk about business models. You can download a free copy here.
In this talk, participants had the chance to practice mapping out the business model canvas of Nespresso. From this exercise one is able to see how all the pieces of the Nespresso coffee business fits together and can actually see the relationships play out. Osterwalder recommends trying this exercise not only for your own business, but for other successful businesses to see and understand how their models work and function.
Update JCF: Partners, Deadline, Paid Internships, Twitter and more
Jóvenes con Futuro is growing, building on the experiences from last year and about to add new developments as we ramp up for 
Year Two of this program!
Among the things we are happy to introduce is a partnership with Fundación Rafael del Pino, a non profit organization committed to fostering future Spanish leaders. Jóvenes con Futuro will now become a stronger vehicle for the advancement of entrepreneurship and Fundación Rafael del Pino is determined to bring many more synergies and possibilities to the program, opening up new opportunities for promising talent. Stay tuned as we build new forums, alumni programs and look into conferences and events in the months to come.
In light of these new developments and feedback from last year, we are also pleased to announce that all internships will be paid while on the job in Silicon Valley or in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can thank Pol, Alberto, Saul, and Ignacio from last year´s program; who demonstrated an excellent technical knowledge and work ethic throughout their experience and continue to prove that Spanish talent is as good as anything in Silicon Valley. Indeed, talented people deserve to be recognized and we hope that paid internships will open up more bandwidth for Spanish programmers this year. For more info on how it will work, please see the FAQ.
To give these developments room for this cycle, we´ve responded by extending the application deadline to Monday, March 19th. In the coming month we will continue to visit a number of universities, meet with computer science students, talk a bit about the typical programmer in Silicon Valley and answer any questions you may have regarding Jóvenes con Futuro. Here´s where we will be in the coming weeks:
ICAI – February 8- Universidad Autónoma de Madrid - February 15
- Universidad Carlos III – February 29
- Universidad Rey Juan Carlos – March 1
- Others pending
Also, we´ve opened up a new Twitter profile, @JovenesFuturo, for the program. We´ll be updating this with program developments, job opportunities for candidates, and news and info on entrepreneurs and we invite you to be among our first followers as we enter into the next phase of this program´s development.
TweetSpanish entrepreneurs need to build more start-ups
David Fogel (@fogeldavid) is an Israeli national and a Venture Lab Fellow with the accelerator program at Instituto de Empresa Business School. After working with startups here in Spain over the last year, he provides some perspective and advice on how to improve entrepreneurship in Spain, while making the contrast with Israel.
If you could build your startup anywhere in the world, where would the best place be to increase the likelihood of success?
Common answers include Silicon Valley, New York and London. However, not far from the Iberian Peninsula, there is a place that leads in entrepreneurship, innovation and venture capital. A place that is a leading example of a successful entrepreneur ecosystem. Few people in Spain know that Israel is a leader in the startup scene. Many great products used every day including the USB flash drive, ICQ Messenger and the technology behind Microsoft Kinect were born in Israel. As an Israeli living in Spain and working with startups for the past 16 months, I was asked to provide some input on what Spanish entrepreneurs can learn from their Israelis counterparts.
Over the past year we have been hearing about entrepreneurship as one of the best ways to help the economy recover. Spanish entrepreneurs such as Miguel Arias, Alex Barrera and Iñaki Arrola have suggested ways for the government to help foster the ecosystem. The government providing support infrastructure is necessary but it is not sufficient.
Entrepreneurs need to do their part. They need to build a lot of startups. Successful start-ups, will come, but first you need to have a lot of entrepreneurs that feel comfortable with failure.
Failing means learning -
In Israel, during a good year, only 50 startups get seed funding. After another 18 months, approximately 80% of these startups are closed. Within two years, 99% of the startups fail. Yet every year 800 new startups are created.
Failing is the best opportunity to analyze yourself, your decisions and to make sure you understand what went wrong, so not to repeat it the next time. Was your team the right one? Was your market big enough? Was your product the best solution for the problem? Make sure you understand why you failed, and you will have a better chance to be the next big Spanish startup.
To be the next great success, you need to dream big and think global -
Israel only has 7.5 million citizens, for an Israeli startup to succeed; Israelis are not the target market. Israeli entrepreneurs have to think global from day one. In Spain an entrepreneur usually looks at his region. Unfortunately very few startups in Spain are planning to target the US or European markets. Let me be clear; you do not have to launch your initial version in the US. However, when you set your vision, think of your global users not just your Spanish ones. If you found a good solution for a big problem then people in the U.K and U.S and even China will use your product.
Make sure you do it in English -
Spain and Israel are very similar; both countries have an amazing heritage that they want to preserve and language is a very important part of it, but when you are in startup universe you need to speak their language, and no matter if you launch your product in Hebrew or Spanish the official language in the startup universe is English. In Israel there are more than 25 early stage VCs and all of them have Israelis partners that speak Hebrew fluently, yet you will never see a presentation or hear a pitch in Hebrew. If you think global from day one, you understand that after raising funds in Israel you will need to go and raise funds in other countries and find strategic partners all over the globe, so you have to build everything in English from the start.
So in Summary
- Fail and learn from it
- Think global from day one
- Do it in English
I hope I managed to give you some insights about Israel. If you are interested in better understanding the Israeli startup ecosystem I recommend reading a book called “startup Nation”. Feel free to reach out to me at @fogeldavid
TweetMeet Koldo García, CEO of The MadVideo
The Mad Video is one of the first companies joining “american adventure” at the Spain Tech Center in Silicon Valley. The Mad Video, a spin off of MadPixel, is an online tool for tagging and adding rich content to any object displayed in your video in an easy, fast and intuitive way. CEO Koldo García (@koldogb) landed a couple of months ago and will now develop his product for the international market leveraging his presenece in San Francisco.
He was kind enough to sit down and tell us a bit about why he decided to move to Silicon Valley, the cultural implications of doing business there, and his expectations on the future of The MadVideo. Find the video above.
Tweet2012 Trends Forecast
Last year was an intense one for the tech industry: IPOs, mergers and new products. 2012 seems like it is going to follow suit with acquisitions, stock market turbulence and a focus on mobile development. The increasing number of smartphone users is going to set the stage for a handful of trends for this year, not only with apps but also with updates such as geolocation implemented on mobile devices. Check out our 2012 trends forecast to see what’s going to be hot these upcoming months!
1. Netflix, Hulu and the cable
The materialization and evolution of on-demand video services like Netflix and Hulu is making cable companies review their business model. Therefore, Google and Apple are working with major TV channels to provide their shows not only via streaming platforms, but on smartphones and tablet devices. These subscription services are increasing the user demand for more content everyday: it’s easier to use, find and select your choice wherever and whenever you want, something cable is not able to do. Because of this, 2012 is going to be a interesting year to watch how Netflix expands through Europe and how the Internet titans develop their partnerships with media companies, phone companies and cable providers!
2. IPOs
All signs point to 2012 as the year of Facebook’s IPO. Mark Zuckerberg has said that Facebook will release its financials to the public in April to comply with regulatory rules. Aside from the Palo Alto giant, there are others in line to go public as well. Yelp (already filed a $100 million IPO), Tumblr ( latest deal valued around $100 million) and Dropbox (who raised more than $257 million from diverse venture capitals as Sequoia Capital).
“The surge in activity and relative strength in the number and diversification of industries in the IPO pipeline are early signs of a healthier IPO market in 2012,” according to a new report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). Let’s see how IPO’s deal with the markets this year!
3. P2P Markets
Peer-to-peer marketplaces are hot in the start-up space this year reporting remarkable growth and unleashing a wave of disruptive innovation. These markets are connecting consumers online, reinventing market behavior and bringing “sharing” to a scale never before possible. The peer-to-peer movement is changing not just what we consume, but how we consume it. Last year was Airbnb’s breakout year, and we think 2012 will be huge for Rentalic, Getaround, Soundcloud and Lendingclub.
4. Startups to look out for in 2012
- Zaarly (e-commerce)
- Level up (mobile payment)
- Dwolla (mobile payment)
- Eventbrite (events)
- Boutiika (e-commerce)
- BranchOut (professional networking)
- HotPad (housing search)
- NextDoor (hyper local networking)
5. Coworking Spaces
Coworking spaces are an old friend of entrepreneurs here in the States, and Europe is no stranger to that model. Nowadays, specially since the economic crisis began, these co-working spaces have become an affordable way to launch your company and not be burdened by high office expenses along the way. Europe is leaping on this wave, and the co-working trend will be growing in popularity in 2012 in the Old Continent. If you’re wondering where can you find co-working space in Europe, don’t worry, check out the listing here.
6. Location Enabled Apps integration + Social Integration
2011 has seen a lot of location and social integration in the mobile app sphere. Many apps such as Facebook, Foursquare, Instagram, Yelp and others allow you to share where you are with your social networks. GPS-based services were once reserved for navigation purposes. 2012 will be the year where we find more and more location integration blending into everyday life.
7. E-Commerce Becomes More Local
E-commerce will shift towards bringing local businesses on or back on the map in 2012. We are seeing people utilizing e-commerce to re-discover their neighborhoods and locally made products. John Doerr’s concept of “SoLoMo”, social, local and mobile will pave the path and dramatically grow this year. Some San Francisco start-ups on the rise exemplifying this trend are Boutiika, a boutique shop discovery app, and Nextdoor for hyperlocal networking.
8. Tablets & Ultrabooks
2012 will be the year where tablets become more commonplace. We will see a surge in competition for the Ipad, and many lower priced competitive tablets will appear on the market. Also taking off this year are ultrabooks, which are slimmer more powerful laptops similar to the Macbook Air. We recently saw the unveiling of Dell’s XPS 13, Lenovo’s IdeaPad U310, U410, HP’s Envy 14 Spectre, Samsung’s series 9, Asus UX31, Intel’s gesture-controlled ultrabook and others at CES 2012.
9. Car Usership not Ownership
In KPMG’s annual survey of executives from the global automotive industry, results showed that “the world is moving from car ownership to car usership.” We have seen this from Zipcar, Relayride and other companies promoting car rentals. However, this year we will begin to see more intelligent services and new players in hybrid and electric car-makers.
10. Big Tech Firms Expanding
This year we can expect large tech companies to continue to branch out and try to develop other products and services outside of their core. We saw Google purchase Motorola Mobility and roll out Google+, Amazon launched a tablet computer, and other companies were involved in acquisitions and partnerships this year. People have their eyes on Apple’s next move into television and Facebook’s next moves for 2012.
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El rizoma de los trasplantados es como el del emprendedor común
Saúl Díez Guerra, now an alumni of the JCF class of 2011, will continue working for AmpushSocial after the internship that he started some months ago. He writes about his experience in the Valley and about the contrasts he has observed. He can be found on Twitter at @definitely
A riesgo de parecer un disco rayado, parece que fue ayer cuando estaba en Barajas esperando por el avión. La gracia es que es verdad y hace un par de días estaba en la T2 trabajando tirado en el suelo esperando por el avión, ya que volví a España por Navidad, pues tenía que renovar el visado y más urgentemente tenía que intentar poner en jaque a las industrias del jamón y el polvorón.
Ha pasado tiempo ya desde el post aquel en el que decía que íbamos a beber Coca-Cola, y la verdad es que llevamos varios meses de botellón. Se veía venir, y a los dos meses de estar por aquí, la empresa me pidió que me quedara: que me contrataban y que me mudase a Nueva York para abrir otra oficina. Así que eso hice, no sin pocas trabas tanto legales como logísticas porque, amigos, políticos hay en todos lados y, si bien el diablo en este país se quita del medio para no molestar cuando se trata de negocios, espanta las moscas con el rabo cuando se trata de inmigración.
Me dicen que en esta entrada reflexione y que compare España con Estados Unidos: indirectamente, que elija. Es difícil. Gracias a participar en el programa he tenido la grandísima oportunidad de conocer gran cantidad de gente, tanto americanos como españoles –trasplantados o a punto de trasplantar–. Con lo que me quedo, el takeaway que dirían por aquí, es con que el rizoma de los trasplantados es como el del emprendedor común, y no hay una gran diferencia. A Silicon Valley acude parte de la élite mundial, y la representación española es igual de válida que la americana, la India, la de la China Popular o la de la otra.
Que no se engañe nadie, nada es fácil. Sin embargo, y en mi opinión, en cuanto a talento… somos competitivos. He conocido americanos que me han dejado asombrado, pero muchos españoles también me dejaron con la boca abierta hablando de negocios. Lo mismo digo del nivel técnico y profesional de los ingenieros españoles que he conocido, y en ello incluyo por supuesto a mis tres compañeros: no hay nada que envidiar, y es que al fin y al cabo los bits son bits a ambas orillas del charco.
¿Pero entonces qué pasa? ¿Por qué no crece orgánicamente un Tomelloso Valley? Pues pasa, en mi opinión, que en España falta que todas esas instituciones que sabemos que molestan se quiten del medio, y que dejemos de intentar copiar la casa por el tejado: vale ya de subvenciones inútiles y de palabras vacías, apoyemos de una vez a las empresas de base tecnológica igual que hacen aquí y jubilemos esa educación casposa que predica y premia la memorización por la memorización, en vez de la creatividad y el ingenio. Son las instituciones las que fallan: en Tomelloso hay gente igual de inteligente y con las mismas ganas de mejorar su entorno que en Estados Unidos… pero en vez de apoyarles, dedicarles recursos y fomentar esas actitudes, se les ponen todas las trabas del mundo y se les cuelga el sambenito de quijotes por mostrar iniciativa.
Punto y aparte merece que se intente replicar el fenómeno en cada capital de provincia en vez de dejar a la economía seguir su curso: señores, al igual que no podemos tener un aeropuerto internacional y una estación de AVE en cada ciudad, no podemos tener “un Silicon Valley” en cada una. Las economías de escala y el efecto de red están demostrados empíricamente y si tratamos de navegar contra la corriente, en vez de cluster effect vamos a terminar en clusterfuck.
Para terminar, citaré parte del manifiesto de una pequeña start-up que fabrica ropa y accesorios ecológicos que conocí cuando me vine a Nueva York, ya que me alojé en su casa gracias a AirBnB. Reza así: life is about the people you meet and the things you create with them, so go out and start creating.
#LeWeb 2011
LeWeb es sin duda el evento de Internet más relevante de Europa y uno de los más reconocidos a nivel mundial. Cada año se hace más grande, llegando en esta edición a los 3.500 asistentes con emprendedores, inversores, periodistas y bloggers provenientes de más de 60 píses.
Este año tuve la suerte de asistir representando a StepOne y ver de primera mano las novedades que presentaron ponentes de altísimo nivel como Eric Schmidt, Sean Parker, Daniel Ek de Spotify, Kevin Systrom de Instagram, Brian Chesky de Airbnb e incluso Karl Lagerfeld. Las únicas grandes ausentes fueron Apple, como era de esperar, y Twitter.
La conclusión principal de esta edición de LeWeb es que el mundo ya no es cada vez mas móvil, sino que ya es prácticamente sólo móvil. El título de la conferencia, “SoLoMo” (Social, Local, Mobile) fue corroborado por la mayoría de los ponentes como George Colony de Forrester Research. Otras compañías como Path,Uber, Foursquare o Flipboard únicamente hablaron de sus aplicaciones móviles y el futuro de las implicaciones sociales que éstas tenían, ya sea en el sector de los contenidos, el transporte o la fotografía.
Algunas empresas también aprovecharon el encuentro para hacer anuncios con novedades en su estrategia: Spotify anunció el lanzamiento de Last.fm, su servicio de radio, Deezer comunicó su servicio de música en streaming en 200 países, Uber comenzará sus operaciones en Francia y Karl Lagerferd lanzará online su nueva colección en colaboración con Net-A-Porter, por mencionar algunos de ellos.
El ciclo de conferencias se culminó con una competición de start-ups co-organizada junto con TechCrunch Europe. De entre más de 600 proyectos presentados, los tres finalistas (Beintoo, HeyCrowd y Babelverse) tuvieron la oportunidad de presentar su pitch frente a a miles de espectadores. La guinda de estos tres días fue la fiesta de despedida que tuvo lugar la segunda noche al borde del río Sena y junto al Palacio Real y el museo del Louvre.
La representación española (o afincada en España) estaba formada por más de 15 personas como Javier Andres, Iñaki Arredondo, Benard Niesner, Iñaki Arrola, Mariano Torrecilla, Alex Barrera, Iñaki Berenguer y Carlos Domingo.
Un año más se ha confirmado que la oportunidades de negocio y networking son extraordinarias, y Geraldine y Loic han hecho un trabajo excelente juntando a los mejores emprendedores e inversores de Europa y EEUU en la que ya seguro es de las conferencias de Internet más importantes del mundo.
Espero poder asistir de nuevo el año que viene y ver compitiendo a alguno de los nuestros. Totalmente recomendado.
María Fanjul (@fanjulmaria)
Head of the Advisory Committee en StepOneVentures
“Sin duda, tenemos que aprender”
15 millones de descargas en más de 90 países coronan a Ideateca como una de las referencias nacionales en el desarrollo de videojuegos y aplicaciones multidispositivo. Desde mayo cuentan con un pequeño espacio en el RocketSpace de San Francisco. Iruri Knörr, Marketing Manager en la oficina de Bilbao, nos explica cuáles han sido sus impresiones tras su última visita a su nueva oficina en el Valle.
Mucho se habla de Silicon Valley y de la importancia para cualquier emprendedor de conocer de primera mano lo que allí se cuece. Hace algunos meses mi hermano Eneko Knörr, CEO de Ideateca, me convenció para apuntarme a una misión tecnológica con el objetivo de ir a San Francisco y conocer de primera mano esa magia de la que tanto se habla, y ese ambiente tan especial que dicen que se respira.
Por supuesto, fui. Y una semana después, volví con las pilas cargadas, muy motivada,con ganas de hacer cosas, más y más cosas, más rápido y mejor. ¿Pero por qué? ¿Qué hay en Silicon Valley que no se pueda encontrar aquí? Desafortunadamente no es nada concreto; son sólo sensaciones.
Se me contagió por ejemplo la ilusión con la que se viven allí los nuevos proyectos. La gente con la que hablé sólo pensaba en avanzar, y en su vocabulario no existía el fracaso: “si tiene que llegar, llegará, pero no condicionará mi proyecto”, me decía un joven estudiante que acababa de montar una empresa de videojuegos con un compañero de clase.
Se me contagió también su capacidad de conocer y escuchar a otras personas. En cualquier acto, evento o reunión, se interesaban por los que allí estábamos, nuestro trabajo, nuestras inquietudes, nuestra visión de futuro. Me di cuenta de que las ideas por lo tanto no son tan importantes como las personas que las llevan a cabo.
Y es que para bien o para mal, creo que en Silicon Valley se vive en una burbuja: se mira hacia dentro, se colabora entre quienes están cerca, gusta lo que nace y evoluciona allí,ilusiona y se promociona lo que se crea alrededor. Y por todo ello esta comunidad crece y crece a una velocidad astronómica. Sin duda, tenemos que aprender de esa actitud. Pero para los que no estamos allí, esta actitud tiene también su parte negativa: es muy difícil cruzar la línea y entrar en la rueda, su rueda, tan importante en el mundo emprendedor y tecnológico hoy en día.
Por eso ahora en Ideateca hemos puesto allí una pata. Para seguir creciendo creemos necesario respirar ese mismo aire, tratar de tú a tú con nuestros proveedores y partners,porque en este mundo de internet y tecnología, el trato cara a cara aún es vital para cualquier negocio… y persona.
Porque aquel viaje me hizo entender que hay que apostar por aquello en lo que crees, que compartiendo se crece más rápido, y que no hay que perder de vista el horizonte al que queremos llegar. Pero conocer y absorber esta filosofía no es sólo cosa de startups y emprendedores, sino que resulta sin duda enriquecedor para afrontar la vida en todas sus facetas.
TweetFred Wang: “Ironically, today it is hard to find interesting entrepreneurs and ideas”
Speaking with Stanford’s INFORMS chapter a few weeks ago was Fred Wang, a General Partner at Trinity Ventures in Menlo Park. Trinity Ventures is a boutique early-stage venture firm that has funded such companies as Starbucks and Photobucket.
As a venture capitalist (VC) that’s come across many projects, Fred commented that ironically, it is difficult today to find interesting entrepreneurs and ideas. He offered to shed some light on certain characteristics that he looks for when pursuing an entrepreneur.
The first is integrity. VCs do not want to deal with big egos and entrepreneurs who hold a poor record of relationships. Instead VCs tend to seek out real personalities who are sincere and have histories reflective of that. The second is a deep amount of subject matter expertise. An entrepreneur need not be critically acclaimed in the field, but they should have experience relevant to the type of business that they are developing. VCs also value the interaction they have with the entrepreneur. This is refers to how thoughtfully the entrepreneur answers questions and how they react. Overall, Fred said that building a set of relationships is one of the most important aspects between a VC and entrepreneur.
Fred was also asked to comment on some emerging trends that hold promise. He mentioned that we could see a rise in consumer entertainment, commerce built off of social networks, cloud computing and mobile developments. Another trend that he found to be particularly exciting was the idea of the “quantified self.” This relates to easily being able to measure things in your life though a variety of tech applications, products and services.
Thank you Fred for sharing your thoughts and letting us in on insights from the venture capital side!
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